The 1080p display is easy on the eyes, but hard on the battery.

HTC is having a troubling 2012. Its revenue is way, way down from 2011; it looked to be losing a patent suit with Apple when it settled earlier this week; and it drew some ire recently for pulling the plug on Jelly Bean updates for phones made as recently as this year. At the risk of making an understatement, the company needs a win.

That's one of the reasons we're paying special attention to the company's recently announced Droid DNA handset. The device marries the quick quad-core Snapdragon chip used by the Optimus G and Nexus 4 to a 5-inch 1080p display that boasts a whopping 440ppi density. The more pixels you pack into a display, though, the more tradeoffs you need to make elsewhere, particularly in graphics performance and battery life. Our full review will go into more detail on all of these points, but our first few days with this phone indicate these compromises might not be worth it for most users.

A phone with more pixels than my TV

There's no denying the screen on the Droid DNA is very, very nice to look at. The color is great and it's every bit as bright as the screen used by the Optimus G. There's basically no vantage point from which you can make out any of the individual pixels. The phone's 5-inch screen makes it just a bit taller and a hair wider than the 4.7-inch phones, but unlike the Galaxy Note line it's not so much bigger that it impacts how you use the phone. If you're already used to Big Ol' Android Phones, the size increase doesn't make much of a difference.

That said, bumping the screen's resolution from near-720p to 1080p doesn't have the same return as going from, say, the screen on the iPhone 3GS to the screen on the iPhone 4. You'll notice some differences in the rendering of very, very small text—small print that is pixelated-but-legible on the Optimus G looks crystal clear on the Droid DNA—but most things don't look that different to the naked eye, especially at a normal viewing distance.

Enlarge/ Small text that is slightly distorted on the Optimus G's screen.

The increased density also causes a few problems for some apps that don't quite seem prepared for it—as we saw in our Nexus 10 review, some application icons and graphics look a little blurry at extremely high resolutions. Other apps seemed to have some rendering problems.

Some apps, like Chrome here, suffer from blurriness and odd rendering problems on the 1080p display.

Andrew Cunningham

What you leave behind

If you're a stickler for pixel density, the Droid DNA's screen is going to make you happy. But, as mentioned above, you'll make some definite, measurable tradeoffs in other departments to get it.

The first tradeoff is graphics performance. Again, the Droid DNA uses the same quad-core, 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 chip and Adreno 320 GPU as both the LG Optimus G and the Nexus 4. This is the most powerful SoC we've seen in any Android phone to date, but it has to work that much harder to push all of the two-million-plus pixels of the DNA's screen.

Obviously, despite similar screens sizes, frame rates are lower on the DNA's 1080p screen than they are on the Optimus G's 1280x768 screen. For many games this may not matter. The GLBenchmark Onscreen tests max out at 60 frames per second; even at 1080p the Droid DNA can almost reach that in the Egypt Classic test. But long-term, it's something to keep an eye on.

It's also worth noting the Droid DNA gets very, very hot while under load. We didn't see any of the heat-related performance throttling noticed in the Nexus 4, but the phone is just shy of uncomfortable to hold when it's really working.

The drop in graphics performance is measurable, but it doesn't have a huge effect on usability. Today's games aren't yet to the point where they're pushing GPUs like the Adreno 320 or the ones in Apple's A6 and A6X as hard as they can. UI performance is slightly laggy in spots despite Jelly Bean, but past experience would lead me to blame HTC's Sense UI for these problems rather than the underlying hardware. The more damning compromise the DNA makes in the name of pixel density is battery life. At best, the Droid DNA takes a sizable step down from other phones in its class.

We'll perform more thorough general-use battery life testing for our full review, but to get some idea of how the DNA stacked up to the competition I fired up GLBenchmark 2.5's Egypt HD battery life test. That runs the benchmark in a continuous loop to drain the battery. We ran the test simultaneously on the Droid DNA, the Optimus G, and Samsung's Galaxy S III (which uses an older dual-core version of the Snapdragon S4).

We first enabled Airplane Mode on all three phones to remove a few variables from the equation, and then set all three phones to 50 percent brightness—all three of these screens are about equally bright, so this should make for a fairly accurate apples-to-apples comparison. The Galaxy S III's 2100 mAh battery fared the best of the three—it drained after three hours and four minutes. The Optimus G's 2100 mAh battery was close behind at two hours and 55 minutes, a fairly impressive feat given the latter phone's increased speed. Meanwhile, the Droid DNA's 2020 mAh battery lasted only two hours and 24 minutes, about 18 percent lower than the Optimus G and around 22 percent lower than the Galaxy S III. The Droid DNA uses a battery that's about four percent smaller than either of the other phones, but you'll lose much more battery life than that.

Crank up the brightness, and things become even less favorable for the Droid DNA. At 100 percent brightness, the phone fully drained its battery in about an hour and 45 minutes, while the Galaxy S III lasted for around an hour longer. The Optimus G's screen brightness is automatically reduced to about 50 percent when the phone gets too hot, which prevents us from making a direct comparison between the two handsets here. Even so, it's a safe bet it would still last longer than the Droid DNA.

Because of how hard GLBenchmark pushes phones, keep in mind these numbers represent a worst-case scenario for battery life. The situation will doubtlessly improve under lighter, more typical use patterns. Still, compared to other phones in its class, the DNA might have trouble making it through an eight-hour work day without needing to be charged.

Mo' pixels, mo' problems

Enlarge/ The Droid DNA (left) and Optimus G (right) share many characteristics, but the DNA's 1080p display makes all the difference (for better and for worse).

Andrew Cunningham

We can't help but feel that in pursuit of a nice bullet point to mention in marketing materials, HTC gave up features that will be more useful to more people. The handset's battery life, in particular, is mediocre in the best of cases. That situation only gets worse the harder you push the hardware.

Our full review will go deeper into the software, general-use battery life, and the phone's other features. But early signs make the Droid DNA look like an unbalanced phone that will appeal only to a very small niche—those who value pixel density above all else. The quality of the screen is truly excellent, but without a larger battery to help power it you may not be able to look at it very long.

And thus the beginning of the end of the Mobile Resolution Wars arrived, almost as quickly as it began.

When the number of pixels and the power needed to process them goes up as the square of the linear resolution, and the advantage of more pixels drops to nearly zero past the "retina" level, it's always been clear where this was headed.

For me the battery life of my iPhone is its biggest failing, but having a smart phone is way too valuable to go back.

So just wondering if a comparison would be possible to get a feel for these phones

Michael

The iPhone isn't bad at all. Here's a comparison that doesn't include the HTC DNA, but the iPhone 5, the Optimus G, the Nexus 4 and the SGSIII (the DNA would probably be worse than the Nexus 4 in the same benchmark):

The bigger issue here is that last picture - two phones, three seemingly similar bottom buttons, but not the same. A typical user would expect that third button to do the same thing on each one, but it doesn't. I really wish Google would've forced the back-home-recent apps layout on all 4.0+ phones supporting the Play Store.

For me the battery life of my iPhone is its biggest failing, but having a smart phone is way too valuable to go back.

So just wondering if a comparison would be possible to get a feel for these phones

Michael

The iPhone isn't bad at all. Here's a comparison that doesn't include the HTC DNA, but the iPhone 5, the Optimus G, the Nexus 4 and the SGSIII (the DNA would probably be worse than the Nexus 4 in the same benchmark):

I would say by that graphic it is better than "not bad at all". It is Best in class.

It would appear, then, that we're so far ahead of Apple that we only have other Android handsets to compare with.

Long may this continue, and soon may Apple redress this balance. The only beneficiaries can be us.

I'm fairly sure the comparison was made with other Android phones merely to illustrate an apples-to-apples comparison, not that the Apple devices have "fallen behind", so to speak. The article basically analyzed how much an impact the 1080p 5" display makes in terms of battery life, if other factors were more or less controlled for.

My impression is that, in a quest to one-up other smartphones (one such baseline is iPhone), manufacturers can create a device that looks great on paper, but comes out unbalanced and with wrong priorities. In particular, HTC looks a bit desperate with this offering, despite having produced a relatively solid product like One X.

I would say by that graphic it is better than "not bad at all". It is Best in class.

The iPhone's even more impressive compared to the competition if you're on an LTE network. Moto's "Maxx" phones do actually outperform the iPhone, but it's through the brute force method of simply making a thicker phone with a bigger battery.

That being said, I think phones were thin enough a couple years ago, and wouldn't mind if more models started packing more juice instead of shaving millimeters.

Technically, the "retina" revolution stopped around the iPhone 4 - sure you COULD bump up the DPI just a bit more to achieve eagle-eyed 20/10 retina displays, but the number of people who could see the pixels still is very small.

Bumping up the DPI beyond that of the iPhone (326) wasn't really accomplishing much in the end because unless you hold the screen to your eyes, you wouldn't see the pixels on these 400+ DPI displays.

I've heard though this phone suffers from really poor brightness - which is a big issue related to battery life...

And yes, in general, only Motorola seems to have figured out how to do battery life. Having worked for them on a phone, I know why. Hint: We spent many man-months with kernel trackers trying to find the ONE process (and thread) that was waking up the CPU every second. Yes, that process killed battery life, and once we found it and killed it, we saw dramatic battery life improvements. Yes, every little twiddly thing that flashes/beeps/wobble on its own drains the battery (hence why I'm not a fan of live wallpapers - cool yes, but battery hogs they are).

Edit: if you must know, the longer we can keep the CPU in idle at low power settings, the better. That one thread kept causing us to get out of idle and having to re-enable the main power rails.

And yes, in general, only Motorola seems to have figured out how to do battery life. Having worked for them on a phone, I know why. Hint: We spent many man-months with kernel trackers trying to find the ONE process (and thread) that was waking up the CPU every second. Yes, that process killed battery life, and once we found it and killed it, we saw dramatic battery life improvements. Yes, every little twiddly thing that flashes/beeps/wobble on its own drains the battery (hence why I'm not a fan of live wallpapers - cool yes, but battery hogs they are).

Edit: if you must know, the longer we can keep the CPU in idle at low power settings, the better. That one thread kept causing us to get out of idle and having to re-enable the main power rails.

I think developing your own OS and SOC in parallel (as Apple does) gives quite a bit of potential to micro-manage and optimize your power draw from both sides.

I always have my messenger bag on me, and I've got a USB charger I keep topped off in it. It'll charge my phone like 80%.

If that doesn't work, I've been known to use my tablet as a charger. (keyboard battery for the win!)

I am kinda thinking about investing in a solar charger; some of them are quite fast, now, and small. Maybe a pound, with battery pack. I've spent enough time sitting around airports with huge banks of windows it might be worth it. (Useful also for camping.)

And thus the beginning of the end of the Mobile Resolution Wars arrived, almost as quickly as it began.

When the number of pixels and the power needed to process them goes up as the square of the linear resolution, and the advantage of more pixels drops to nearly zero past the "retina" level, it's always been clear where this was headed.

The GS3's display is considerably less bright than the modern IPS screens on the Optimus G's cousin, the Nexus 4 or the One X and presumably the DNA.

And isn't the battery life test arguably unfair for the DNA, or at least an apples to orange comparison? Looking at GL Benchmark 2.5, all three battery tests appear to run only at the display resolution with a cap of either 30fps or 60 fps. It would appear to me that:

-The GS3 lasts longest because it has the slowest GPU and presumably the one that uses the least amount of power even going full blast. It's relatively dim screen also helps. -The Optimus G lasts long as well because it's very fast GPU allows it reach the benchmark's FPS limit without needing 100% GPU utilization at its display resolution-While having the same fast GPU, the DNA's higher resolution means that the GPU is closer to, if not outright, at 100%

As a comparison, this would be like trying to compare the power consumption of two PC systems, with roughly the same components including the same CPU, amount of memory and video card (let's say a 7970). However, one system is tested running Diablo 3 (a not particularly challenging game graphically) at 1280x720, while the other is running at 1920x1080. The system running at 1920x1080 uses more power but that's because it's doing more work.

I'm still wondering how Verizon's Galaxy Note 2 faired on these tests as well. I'm seriously considering that phone but wondering if the Galaxy S II is more worth the money or not. I'm still getting an extended battery for either phone just wondered if the practibility of both phones. Please Andrew consider reviewing the Galaxy Note 2 for me as I want to get the most bang for the phone and won't be getting another phone for a long while...

I'm still wondering how Verizon's Galaxy Note 2 faired on these tests as well. I'm seriously considering that phone but wondering if the Galaxy S II is more worth the money or not.

Assuming you meant GS III, I also had the same conundrum, but ended up with GS III as the Note is a tad too big for me. I can comfortably read a few hundred page PDF's and not missing the pen as much. One handed operation is still bit of a stretch sometimes, but doable. I would have had trouble with the Note with my small hands.

I'm still wondering how Verizon's Galaxy Note 2 faired on these tests as well. I'm seriously considering that phone but wondering if the Galaxy S II is more worth the money or not.

Assuming you meant GS III, I also had the same conundrum, but ended up with GS III as the Note is a tad too big for me. I can comfortably read a few hundred page PDF's and not missing the pen as much. One handed operation is still bit of a stretch sometimes, but doable. I would have had trouble with the Note with my small hands.

Yes, meant the Galaxy S III thanks for that clarification and your suggestion as I will use this phone at work and at home..

I really would like to know how representative this opinion is for the smartphone customer base. For me battery life is one of the more important features of any electronic gadget (it is also high on my priority list for laptops)

It seems that HTC is betting that Boskone's approach to battery life is more prevalent in their customer base than mine. I for sure would not buy a smartphone that trades battery life for a screen resolution that does not seem to have a real life benefit.

For me the battery life of my iPhone is its biggest failing, but having a smart phone is way too valuable to go back.

So just wondering if a comparison would be possible to get a feel for these phones

Michael

The iPhone 5 has among the best battery lifes of any smart phone, and better than that of the 4S. You are unlikely to find one that gets better. Anandtech has not yet done a full review of the DNA (Just a hands on), but here is the review for the Nexus 4, which includes battery life results from many other phones:

Bad battery life is a hallmark of HTC phones. My EVO 4G never sees a full day of charge. If I browse the web within two hours I will need to recharge it.

I'm gonna have to agree with this. As a owner of about 3-4 HTC phones over the course of a number of years, I can truly say that comparatively, HTC phones have had abysmal battery life. My Google Nexus on the other hand will last me around 1.5 days if I really need it to.

But of course the iPhone wins hands down when it comes to battery life. The advantage of being in control over both the hardware and software I guess. With the exception of Nokia's older phones that used to have truly legendary battery life. Those were the days.

Personally, I'm disappointed to see anti- aliasing in that close up of the text. The whole reason for anti-aliasing was to make up for the low reason of screen.

Given that antialiasing creates a lot of pain for text layout (it's the reason that second screenshot of text looks so blurry - lines are being drawn "between pixels") and rendering, has some (small) overhead, and that it is almost entirely unnecessary, I would've hoped it would not even be used on phones that are pushing over 400dpi. Might even help performance and battery life a little bit by getting rid of it.

I really would like to know how representative this opinion is for the smartphone customer base. For me battery life is one of the more important features of any electronic gadget (it is also high on my priority list for laptops)

It seems that HTC is betting that Boskone's approach to battery life is more prevalent in their customer base than mine. I for sure would not buy a smartphone that trades battery life for a screen resolution that does not seem to have a real life benefit.

Oh, I wouldn't buy the DNA; I don't think screen res, past a certain already-reached point, matters on a phone. I also think that 4.5" +/0 .2" is pretty much the optimum range for smartphones; 5" seems too much. I'd rather tether (or have connected) a 7" tablet for "big screen pocketable".

(To be honest, I've seriously considered a 7" tablet and dumb phone, but I'm addicted to nav, music streaming, and Audible. )

Personally, I'm disappointed to see anti- aliasing in that close up of the text. The whole reason for anti-aliasing was to make up for the low reason of screen.

Given that antialiasing creates a lot of pain for text layout (it's the reason that second screenshot of text looks so blurry - lines are being drawn "between pixels") and rendering, has some (small) overhead, and that it is almost entirely unnecessary, I would've hoped it would not even be used on phones that are pushing over 400dpi. Might even help performance and battery life a little bit by getting rid of it.

Even on a 400ppi screen, you can't have decent typography without antialias drawing "between pixels".

Antialias isn't just a smoothing trick, it's necessary for proper hinting and kerning.

Look at that small text close-up, an "a" is still 8x6 pixels.If you pixel-snapped the strokes, you wouldn't have enough resolution to draw faithful letterforms, render the differences between weights, and space the characters properly.

Text would look less fuzzy but badly drawn letterforms and uneven spacing would affect the legibility more.

And isn't the battery life test arguably unfair for the DNA, or at least an apples to orange comparison? Looking at GL Benchmark 2.5, all three battery tests appear to run only at the display resolution with a cap of either 30fps or 60 fps.

I think it's a fair test since variation in the processing load is all the hardware's "fault." It's like running the same graphics-heavy app on each device without any model-specific tweaks. In other words, typical (non-micromanaging) users will see shorter battery life on one device vs the other.

not sure how i could ever go away from this Moto Razr maxx phone i got now (ok maybe get the Maxx HD version) its the first phone that does not turn into an iPlug halfway thou the day or need an extended battery

mobile makers should pay more attention to REAL world use then just throw 1400-2000 battery that mite get thou the day when running nothing on the phone

as to why i tend to look at battery size first in reviews if it still only has less then 2500 bat its likely going to poor day use out of it (more so if it has Real 4g {for USA readers LTE} then 3000 is an must), so no point in much looking at the rest of the review in much detail as it will be an iPlug phone

what is interesting the Real world Battery use over Benchmarked battery use Never matches up (most phones are lucky to get half an day use out of them)

this Razr maxx i got here now i can hammer it for 5-8hrs Screen on Time with one charge (GPS tends to Sway the lower time) that translates into about 1day and an half battery time under med use, 1 day if i really go mad with games, nav, web, and i still have 20% battery left after all that as well, my phone has been on now for 16hrs and its still got 50% battery life left most other smart phones would of died long time ago from light use (i could get 3-4 days out of this maxx if i left 2g Only enabled and most likely 4-6 days if i turned off all data/wifi off + 2g only but i never do that)

the HTC desire with an extended battery (2400) and the HTC One X i had for an short time both maybe 2-3 hours screen on time (before i start using GPS then it can be half that) i could get an day out of the HTC Desire (the first one, no h v s x so on) with the extended Brick battery depending how long GPS was used

i could mostly get an full day out of the One X under light use but its battery was really not big enough for its intended use and that was for playing games you be lucky if you got close to 2 hours (i used the GPS it did die quite fast again under 2hrs), other issue with the one x Stupid placement of the power button at the top of the phone (need 2 hands to press it or you risk dropping the phone due to its light wight and smooth back of the phone and the size of the phone) it should of been on the side like samsung s3 and moto do on there bigger phones

i never consider an new smartphone now unless it has an good oversize battery (that should be standard anyway) like maxx phone that Motorola do (even thought they are in bad books with lots other users over not getting 4x updates) also any phone bigger then 4.3 for an phone now just seems to big for an phone now (razr seems perfect)